Math Plans

The other main area that I want to focus this year is the beginnings of math understanding.  Lydia can count to 20 and can count objects as well.  This year I'm hoping to instill a little more understanding like bigger/smaller, greater than/less than, equal numbers of things, and the beginnings of arithmetic.  I have no idea if this is too large of an order for her this year, but those are my goals.  I have a few math programs that I want to work through slowly with her, and just like reading, I have several supplementary math programs as well.

Miquon is one of the weirder math programs out there.  It is from the 70s and is sort of abstract, for lack of a better term.  It makes great use of Cuisenaire rods.  It is a program meant to be used through 3rd grade and is supposed to be especially good at understanding the why of math.  I've read tons about it and it sounds very promising, but I'm not sure how its unique approach will go over with Lydia.  It's something I'm going to have to wait and see.

Speaking of Cuisenaire rods, I recently acquired this book, Idea Book for Cuisenaire Rods. I plan on using it in conjunction with Miquon Math.  It has a bunch of games and activities to use to teach math concepts using the rods.

A more traditional, but still not quite traditional math program that I'm planning on using is Singapore Essentials Math A (and B too, when we get there).  I plan on making Singapore Primary Math our spine when Lydia starts grade school math, and I liked the look of these workbooks.  It looks like they will definitely help me in my goal of helping her cement the pre-math concepts she'll need later on.

Finally, the last main resource I plan on using for math is Mathematics Enhancement Programme, also known as MEP.  It's a completely free program written for schools and put out by the British government.  It's a little more concept-centric than a standard math program as well.  I plan to focus on the Reception (Kindergarten/Preschool) level.  This one is great because I can do it almost completely on Lydia's new iPad because it is all in PDF.

As with reading, I have several supplementary resources to use.  One of these is Kitchen Table Math.  This is less of a curriculum and more of a guide on how to teach math concepts. There are several websites (too many to list) that have worksheets you can print for different math concepts.  I also have been acquiring many math manipulatives (counters, Cuisenaire rods, pattern plocks, etc.), and more recently, I've been exploring the world of iPad apps to teach math.  It's too soon to tell if I'll use any of them.

So that's it for math.  I don't have a particular timeline that I feel she needs to learn any of these things yet, and I have I have a feeling she will probably get stuck several times, but hopefully we can make some progress this year!